Post Type: Ten Minutes Announcement

"Tina was my business coach for 6 months. During that time she gave me a better understanding of how marketing could benefit my business and introduced me to approaches I hadn’t known about. We now have a well-thought out marketing strategy, which has already brought benefits. Tina is an astute and creative thinker with an engaging personality; I’m happy to recommend her.”

It is always a delight to see the success of my clients and many more testimonials of success can be found on my website www.coachingdynamics.co.uk.Tina Dulieu

11th May 2013

Post Type: Other

Tina Dulieu of Coaching Dynamics is delighted that one of her Growth Accelerator clients, Zoom Answer Call, has been selected as an official case study for success! The Government funded Growth Accelerator is for entrepreneurial businesses who want rapid and sustainable growth and Tina is one of their registered and approved Growth Coaches. Zoom Answer Call's MD, Chella Heyes, has said that the Growth Accelerator programme with Coaching Dynamics 'has changed the direction of my business and me personally'.

07th May 2013

Post Type: Education Item

The ascent of Japan as a major world manufacturer is all the more impressive when one considers that it has minimal natural resources. Prior to March 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, 30% of Japan’s power was from nuclear sources. Since then 52 of the country’s 54 reactors have been closed pending safety reviews, causing a significant energy shortage.

In response Japan has doubled its import of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and increased coal imports. It is now the world’s largest importer of LNG, second largest importer of coal and third largest importer of oil.

This sudden reliance on imported carbon fuels has been expensive. A weak yen has proven useful in supporting Japanese exports in foreign markets but conversely made fuel imports ruinously expensive – prompting Japan’s first budget deficit in 31 years. Restarting even half its nuclear reactors would save an annual $20 billion. If oil prices were to double Japan’s economy would struggle to ever emerge from deficit. It would then need significant borrowings – which would in turn impact its credit rating and so increase borrowing costs. Given the increasingly volatile political situation in the Middle East this is no idle menace – a reliance on imported carbon fuel sources would see Japan a hostage to fortune. Frantic negotiations with Russia and the US to ensure continuity of supply have brought some surety but without nuclear power it is hard to see how Japan can maintain political autonomy and climb out of deficit. It has already retracted a promise to cut greenhouse gasses by 25% by 2020.

Ironically, the Fukushima disaster was seen by some as a positive indicator for nuclear power – it was an outdated 1971 installation, suffered an unprecedented 9.0 Richter earthquake and tsunami which disabled it’s cooling systems allowing meltdowns in 3 cores, yet (to date) no measurable health effects have been observed in Fukushima staff. A World Health Organization report estimated the health risks in Japan and worldwide as negligible.

Germany’s reaction to the Fukushima disaster was to abandon nuclear power altogether, closing 8 out of 17 nuclear stations so far (the balance will close by 2022). It drastically cut exports of electricity and replaced nuclear power with coal – creating an additional 300 million tons of CO2 by 2020. France is the opposite – it generates 80% of its electricity from nuclear sources and seems unlikely to change.

Britain has not built a single nuclear power station since the 1980s, and all but one of its nuclear facilities will close by 2023. The government however appears to have discovered a new enthusiasm for it, possibly prompted by looming carbon reduction deadlines. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency are conducting a Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of modern reactor designs. Let’s hope they’re jellyfish proof.

02nd May 2013

Post Type: Other

01st May 2013

Post Type: Education Item

England is the windiest country in Europe, therefore wind turbines are our favoured large-scale renewable energy source (solar PV in the domestic market). Because no fuel source is required, once installation and maintenance costs are repaid the resulting power is “free”. Carbon-fuelled electricity generators must increasingly compete with an opponent whose marginal cost of manufacture is close to zero. This threatens future profitability and consequently credit rating agencies and banks have begun to selectively downgrade carbon-heavy electricity suppliers. The knock-on effect will be to increase their borrowing costs and negatively impact their share price - in turn threatening their future profitability, and so on…

This would not be such an issue if we could dispense with conventional generation with impunity – however the wind doesn’t always blow and the UK still needs carbon-based generation on standby. Power stations are most economic when running at full capacity – keeping them idling on standby is expensive and undermines the benefits of the renewable capacity they support.

The downward price pressure caused by the ingress of “free” power causes a further problem –distribution. “Free” power becomes saleable only when distributed to the customer via cables, wires and sub-stations. In some areas of the UK this distribution network is at full capacity and financially attractive renewable energy projects are stymied by insufficient local infrastructure with which to export their output to the grid. Ironically, the damage might be self-limiting -without investment the grid will lack the capacity to accept additional renewable energy generation.

Further information concerning the progress of “green” generation in the EU can be found here.